Features

75 Years (3): Tom Nairn, AJ Wilson and the Break-up of States

Published

3 years ago

2023/02/26

Rajan Philips

Tom Nairn, widely known for his 1977 book, The Break-up of Britain, considered by many as “the most significant book on British politics of the past half-century,” passed away on January 21, in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was 90 years old and had become a “guru figure” for Scottish Nationalists over the last few decades. Tributes have poured in from across Scotland’s political spectrum, both nationalists and unionists, including First Minister Nicola Sturgeon who would have been seven years old when Break-up first appeared, her predecessor Alex Salmond, as well as former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the Scotsman from Glasgow. To writer David Greig, Nairn was “Scotland’s intellectual engine of civic contemporary nationalism.” Others have called Nairn, Scotland’s greatest modern philosopher.

The break-up book was not primarily an exposition or celebration of Scottish nationalism, but a breakdown of the crisis of the British State. In his 1977 introduction, Nairn acknowledges that “although no main part of the book was written in Scotland, that country’s problems were never far from the inspiration of all of them.” The introduction includes a list of Scottish intellectuals who helped him with comments and suggestions for the book, and the list includes Gordon Brown. Brown would have been 26 then, still six years before becoming a Member of Parliament, and was working on his PhD thesis at the University of Edinburgh, titled The Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland 1918–1929. The two had collaborated earlier, in 1975, in publishing the “The Red Paper on Scotland”, which Brown edited and to which Nairn was the lead contributor.

Gordon Brown stayed with the Labour Party in Scotland and in Britain, to become Britain’s longest serving Chancellor of the Exchequer and later Prime Minister. Nairn broke away first facilitating the formation of the Scottish Labour Party and then blessing its incorporation within the Scottish Nationalist Party. Brown’s passionate campaign against independence during the 2014 referendum was a factor in 55% of the people of Scotland voting against independence, a verdict that left Nairn hugely disappointed.

Brown was generous in his adulation of Tom Nairn after his death, describing him as “a great writer, thinker, intellectual and good man,” and acknowledging that Nairn “disagreed with me on many things but his books and scholarship will long be remembered.” Anthony Barnett, a former co-editor of the New Left Review, has called Tom Nairn and Gordon Brown “two towering political intellectuals,” who for nearly half a century “have wrestled over and shaped the Left’s view of the United Kingdom.” One of them (Brown) “directly shaped the Kingdom itself,” while the other (Nairn) played a direct “role in the emergence of modern Scotland.” Their “joint story” remains to be told.

Their story would be similar to the often-told Canadian story of Pierre Trudeau and Rene Levesque, two French Canadians and their intellectual and political fight over the status of Quebec in Canada. Here again, Trudeau as Prime Minister of Canada was able to thwart the attempt of Levesque, as the Premier of Quebec, to achieve quasi-separation for his Province through a constitutional arrangement called “sovereignty association.” As a political intellectual, Trudeau was quite dismissive of the statist aspirations of nationalism and characteristically said: “It is not the concept of nation that is retrograde, but its claim to sovereignty.”

Wilson’s Break-up

Eleven years after the publication of The Break-up of Britain, AJ Wilson published the first of his trilogy on the Sinhalese-Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka and titled it, The Break-up of Sri Lanka, perhaps emulating Nairn’s break-up title in Britain. Professor Wilson was not an advocate of political causes but a respected academic and Sri Lanka’s pre-eminent political scientist. The fact that Wilson was the son-in-law of SJV Chelvanayakam, Q.C., the father-figure leader of non-violent Tamil politics, did not diminish his reputation as an objective and detached academic. The affinal relationship certainly gave Wilson an intimate view of decision making in Tamil politics even as it gave him uniquely congenial access to Sri Lanka’s political leaders across the island’s many divides. Wilson was known for his affinity toward and admiration for Leftist leaders, NM Perera and Bernard Soysa; and his writings showed intellectual empathy for Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike and his well-intended, but failed, efforts to reconcile Sinhala-Tamil differences.

A product first of the University of Ceylon and then the London School of Economics, where he obtained his PhD and DSc, Professor Wilson had contributed immensely to the cause of political education in Sri Lanka directly as a teacher of several hundreds of political science students at Peradeniya, and indirectly through his popular and comprehensive textbook, Introduction to Civics and Government, that reached several thousands of students, in all three languages, in Sri Lanka’s schools until the book was banned by ultranationalist ignoramuses at the Department of Education in the early 1960s. Nonetheless, the book was more than a textbook and remained a constant companion for Sri Lanka’s political intellectuals like Rev. Paul Caspersz and Upali Cooray.

Wilson left Peradeniya in 1973 to accept the position as Chair of Political Science at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada, where he remained until his retirement in 1993. Wilson’s break-up book directly arose out of his experience as a constitutional advisor to President Jayewardene between 1978 and 1983, and as a mediator between the President and the TULF leaders. The book is a historical narrative written by an academic from the standpoint of a political participant-observer. It is worth noting that the median over Sri Lanka’s national problem became totally out-sourced, post-Wilson and post-1983.

Now, several decades after the publications of the two break-up books and notwithstanding their premonitory titles, there has been no break-up either in Britain or in Sri Lanka. That is one superficial way of looking at it. A different view would be that over the last three decades there have been significant changes to the ruling structures of the two countries and they have contributed to the two states remaining unbroken. The truth is also that neither book carried a prognostic message or warning, but rather a critique and an analysis of the crisis in which each state was, and continues to be, embedded.

Tom Nairn went on to live for 45 years after the first break-up edition, revisited, modified or reinforced his arguments against a backdrop of rapid world changes, and wrote and published prolifically. Among the more significant books that followed the break-up are: The Enchanted Glass (1988), a substantive critique of and a polemical satire on the British monarchy; Faces of Nationalism (1997), in which Nairn widens his gaze beyond the British isles to make sense of the explosions of nationalism accompanying the implosions of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia; and After Britain: and New Labour and the Return of Scotland (2000), a masterpiece on Blair’s “pseudo-conservative” Labourists as logical successors to Thatcher’s “pseudo-radical” Tories. In 2008, he targeted Gordon Brown, when he was Prime Minister, with an essay, Gordon Brown: The Bard of Britishness, which was published by the Institute of Welsh Affairs, as a symposium including responses to Nairn by others. As well, a new Verso edition of the Break-up was published in January 2022, 45 years after its first appearance.

Professor Wilson passed way in 2000, twelve years after the publication of The Break of Sri Lanka in 1988. He was in poor health but managed to publish two more books, to complete the trilogy and add to his impressive collection of nearly a dozen books on Sri Lankan politics. The second of the trilogy, published in 1994, was a political biography: SJV Chelvanayakam and the Crisis of Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism, 1947-1977. His last word was published in 2000: Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism: Its Origins and Development in the 19th and 20th Centuries. In between, he wrote articles to the Lanka Guardian and the Tamil Times, expressing his opinion on political events, including the one that he wrote with some optimism for positive changes when Chandrika Kumaratunga became Sri Lanka’s President in 1994.

Tom Nairn and Nationalism

Tom Nairn was born in Freuchie, Fife County, Scotland, not far from St. Andrew’s. After high school, he went first to Edinburgh College of Art but changed course for a degree in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, followed by a stint at Oxford. Already steeped in Scottish history and culture, along with those of the Kingdom and the Empire, Nairn went to Italy on a British Council scholarship, where he learnt Italian and took to Gramsci. He would later recall that “If you were a Marxist [in Britain] you were a Stalinist or a Trotskyist, … but I was insulated against that by my Italian experience.” He was a compulsive writer, an academic and an activist. His academic activism, while a lecturer in 1968 at Hornsey College of Art, north London, in support of a sit-in protest, led to an administrative dismissal and quiet disbarment from teaching in British institutions. As a peripatetic academic, he roamed from Europe to Australia, before returning home to teach and write.

Nairn was a natural fit to the group of leftist intellectuals and activists who took over the publication of journal New Left Review (NLR), in London, in the 1970s. The journal had been in publication from 1960, launched by a group of British Marxists who, on the one hand, rejected the politics of the Labour Party and the legacy of Stalinism in the Communist Party of Great Britain, and, on the other, identified themselves wholeheartedly with the then vigorous Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The NLR became a conduit in English for the continental schools of Marxism and a respected forum for disseminating and debating the writings of interwar and postwar Marxists and progressive intellectuals like Antonio Gramsci, Gyorgy Lukacs, Karl and Hedda Korsch, Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, EP Thompson, Louis Althusser, Nicos Poulantzas, and Charles Taylor.

The 1970s NLR group included, besides Tom Nairn, Perry Anderson, Robin Blackburn, Anthony Barnett, Fred Halliday, Nicolas Krasso, and Tariq Ali among others. Sri Lanka’s Upali Cooray, Marxist and Labour Lawyer, was active in the NLR circle. By the 1970s, NLR began taking positions in British politics and Anderson and Nairn formulated the famous Anderson-Nairn thesis on the decline and fall of Britain. The NLR supported Britain joining the European Community, setting itself apart from many in the Labour Party and much of the British Left at that time. Tom Nairn wrote and published a special issue of the journal in 1972, titled, “The Left against Europe?”

The Break-up of Britain, Nairn’s magnum opus, is a collection of articles that he wrote to the New Left Review (NLR) between 1970 and 1977. The articles were written at different times – 1970, 1974, 1975 and 1976, during a decade of alternating governments and severe political and economic crises. The book was published two years before Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. A postscript was added to the 1981 edition by which time Margaret Thatcher was into her third year as Prime Minister.

The book’s chapter headings are indicative of Nairn’s diagnoses of the crisis of Britain’s multi-national state. The first chapter, perhaps written last in 1976, was aptly titled “The Twilight of the British State.” There were two chapters on Scotland (Scotland and Europe, and Old and New Scottish Nationalism); two on England (English Nationalism: the case of Enoch Powell, and the English Enigma); one each on Wales (Culture and Politics in Wales) and Northern Ireland (Relic or Portent?); a penultimate chapter titled, Supra-Nationalism and Europe; and the final chapter: The Modern Janus, a powerful reflection on Marxism and nationalism that begins challengingly, “The theory of nationalism represents Marxism’s great historical failure.”

For students of nationalism, the Break-up’s publication presaged a surge of writings in English on the theory and manifestations of nationalism. Two pathbreaking books appeared in 1983. Benedict Anderson’s (older brother of Perry Anderson) Imagined Communities, brought into relief two principal processes of nation making. ‘Print capitalism’ that led to mass production of newspapers and languages in the hitherto vernaculars of the world, and ‘pilgrimage’ that made modern nomads out of state functionaries, and the two together enabled and facilitated the contemporaneous collective imagination of hitherto disparate groups of people. Anderson’s “preciously written” book somewhat overshadowed Ernest Gellner’s Nations and Nationalism that was also published in 1983.

Gellner’s assertive thesis is that the emergence of nations and nationalisms became feasible only because of industrialization and modernization. Gellner’s student, Anthony Smith, countered Gellner and asserted the ethnic-primordiality of nations in his book, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, published in 1986. Tom Nairn’s writings could be seen as synthesizing the two, modernity and pre-modernity, privileging the former without dismissing the latter. Esoterically speaking, modernity and post-modernity have made possible the national survival of many cultural groups which in Engels’s dismissive description should have been reduced to becoming “ethnographic monuments.”

Tom Nairn is considered to be among the four most cited writers on nationalism along with Benedict Anderson, Ernest Gellner and Anthony Smith. Many others have since enriched the universe of writings on nationalism. Two outstanding books on nationalism in the industrial cradle of Western Europe are, Patrick Geary’s (2002) The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe; and Joep Leerssen’s (2006, first published in the Dutch-language) National Thought in Europe: A Cultural History. Books on nationalism in postcolonial societies outside South Asia, include, Robert J. Foster’s (1995) edited symposium, Nation Making: Emergent Identities in Postcolonial Melanesia; Neil Lazarus’s (1999) Nationalism and Cultural Practice in the Postcolonial World; and Anthony Reid’s (2010) Imperial Alchemy: Nationalism and Political Identity in Southeast Asia.

A common feature of late-twentieth century writings on nationalism is the emphasis on culture and the reliance on cultural anthropology. Intervening at the political-intellectual level was Eric Hobsbawm, a contemporary of Ceylon’s Pieter Keuneman and India’s Mohan Kumaramangalam at Cambridge, Marxist and prolific historian, and an intellectual of the British Communist Party who fought Stalinism from within the Party. In his 1991 book, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, and other writings, Hobsbawm countered the statist (and break-up) assertions of nationalism by powerfully pointing out the hopeless stalemates that contending national polities might generate if every national group, including majority groups, were to insist on a state of its own and reject any and all compromising alternatives. Hobsbawm’s warning comes alive in the two break-up narratives of Britain and Sri Lanka. A dubiously redeeming feature in Britain has been what Nain called the ‘English Enigma,’ a peculiar, imperially sustained, and culturally snobbish abstinence from nationalism by the English people. The tragically opposite indulgence in nationalisms has been the story of post-independence Sri Lanka. More on that – Next Week.

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Features

US-CHINA RIVALRY: Maintaining Sri Lanka’s autonomy

Published

1 day ago

2025/12/19

Thilina Walpola

During a discussion at the Regional Center for Strategic Studies (RCSS) in Sri Lanka on 9 December, Dr. Neil DeVotta, Professor at Wake Forest University, North Carolina, USA commented on the “gravity of a geopolitical contest that has already reshaped global politics and will continue to mould the future. For Sri Lanka – positioned at the heart of the Indian Ocean, economically fragile, and diplomatically exposed- his analysis was neither distant nor abstract. It was a warning of the world taking shape around us” (Ceylon Today, December 14, 2025).

Sri Lanka is known for ignoring warnings as it did with the recent cyclone or security lapses in the past that resulted in terrorist attacks. Professor De Votta’s warning too would most likely be ignored considering the unshakable adherence to Non-Alignment held by past and present experts who have walked the halls of the Foreign Ministry, notwithstanding the global reshaping taking place around us almost daily. In contrast, Professor DeVotta “argued that nonalignment is largely a historical notion. Few countries today are truly non-aligned. Most States claiming neutrality are in practice economically or militarily dependent on one of the great powers. Sri Lanka provides a clear example while it pursues the rhetoric of non-alignment, its reliance on Chinese investments for infrastructure projects has effectively been aligned to Beijing. Non-alignment today is more about perceptions than reality. He stressed that smaller nations must carefully manage perceptions while negotiating real strategic dependencies to maintain flexibility in an increasingly polarised world.” (Ibid).

The latest twist to non-alignment is Balancing. Advocates of such policies are under the delusion that the parties who are being “Balanced” are not perceptive enough to realise that what is going on in reality is that they are being used. Furthermore, if as Professor DeVotta says, it is “more about perception than reality”, would not Balancing strain friendly relationships by its hypocrisy? Instead, the hope for a country like Sri Lanka whose significance of its Strategic Location outweighs its size and uniqueness, is to demonstrate by its acts and deeds that Sri Lanka is perceived globally as being Neutral without partiality to any major powers if it is to maintain its autonomy and ensure its security.

DECLARATION OF NEUTRALITY AS A POLICY

Neutrality as a Foreign Policy was first publicly announced by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa during his acceptance speech in the holy city of Anuradhapura and later during his inauguration of the 8th Parliament on January 3, 2020. Since then Sri Lanka’s Political Establishment has accepted Neutrality as its Foreign Policy judging from statements made by former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena and Foreign Ministers up to the present when President Dissanayake declared during his maiden speech at the UN General Assembly and captured by the Head Line of Daily Mirror of October 1, 2025: “AKD’s neutral, not nonaligned, stance at UNGA”

The front page of the Daily FT (Oct.9, 2024) carries a report titled “Sri Lanka reaffirms neutral diplomacy” The report states: “The Cabinet Spokesman and Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath yesterday assured that Sri Lanka maintains balanced diplomatic relations with all countries, reaffirming its policy of friends of all and enemy of none”. Quoting the Foreign Minister, the report states: “There is no favouritism. We do not consider any country to be special. Whether it is big or small, Sri Lanka maintains diplomatic relations with all countries – China, India, the US, Russia, Cuba, or Vietnam. We have no bias in our approach, he said…”

NEUTRALITY in OPERATION

“Those who are unaware of the full scope and dynamics of the Foreign Policy of Neutrality perceive it as being too weak and lacking in substance to serve the interests of Sri Lanka. In contrast, those who are ardent advocates of Non-Alignment do not realize that its concepts are a collection of principles formulated and adopted only by a group of like-minded States to meet perceived challenges in the context of a bi-polar world. In the absence of such a world order the principles formulated have lost their relevance” (https://island.lk/relevance-of-a neutral-foreign-policy).

“On the other hand, ICRC Publication on Neutrality is recognized Internationally “The sources of the international law of neutrality are customary international law and, for certain questions, international treaties, in particular the Paris Declaration of 1856, the 1907 Hague Convention No. V respecting the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land, the 1907 Hague Convention No. XIII concerning the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers in Naval War, the four 1949 Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I of 1977 (June 2022)” (Ibid).

“A few Key issues addressed in this Publication are: “THE PRINCIPLE OF INVOILABILITY of a Neutral State and THE DUTIES OF NEUTRAL STATES.

“In the process of reaffirming the concept of Neutrality, Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath stated that the Policy of Neutrality would operate in practice in the following manner: “There is no favoritism. We do not consider any country to be special. Whether it is big or small, Sri Lanka maintains diplomatic relations with all countries – China, India, the US, Russia, Cuba or Vietnam. We have no bias in our approach” (The Daily FT, Oct, 9, 2024).

“Essential features of Neutrality, such as inviolability of territory and to be free of the hegemony of power blocks were conveyed by former Foreign Minister Ali Sabry at a forum in Singapore when he stated: “We have always been clear that we are not interested in being an ally of any of these camps. We will be an independent country and work with everyone, but there are conditions. Our land and sea will not be used to threaten anyone else’s security concerns. We will not allow military bases to be built here. We will not be a pawn in their game. We do not want geopolitical games playing out in our neighbourhood, and affecting us. We are very interested in de-escalating tensions. What we could do is have strategic autonomy, negotiate with everyone as sovereign equals, strategically use completion to our advantage” (the daily morning, July 17, 2024)

In addition to the concepts and expectations of a Neutral State cited above, “the Principle of Inviolability of territory and formal position taken by a State as an integral part of ‘Principles and Duties of a Neutral State’ which is not participating in an armed conflict or which does not want to become involved” enabled Sri Lanka not to get involved in the recent Military exchanges between India and Pakistan.

However, there is a strong possibility for the US–China Rivalry to manifest itself engulfing India as well regarding resources in Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone. While China has already made attempts to conduct research activities in and around Sri Lanka, objections raised by India have caused Sri Lanka to adopt measures to curtail Chinese activities presumably for the present. The report that the US and India are interested in conducting hydrographic surveys is bound to revive Chinese interests. In the light of such developments it is best that Sri Lanka conveys well in advance that its Policy of Neutrality requires Sri Lanka to prevent Exploration or Exploitation within its Exclusive Economic Zone under the principle of the Inviolability of territory by any country.

Another sphere where Sri Lanka’s Policy of Neutrality would be compromised is associated with Infrastructure Development. Such developments are invariably associated with unsolicited offers such as the reported $3.5 Billion offer for a 200,000 Barrels a day Refinery at Hambantota. Such a Project would fortify its presence at Hambantota as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Such offers if entertained would prompt other Global Powers to submit similar proposals for other locations. Permitting such developments on grounds of “Balancing” would encourage rivalry and seriously threaten Sri Lanka’s independence to exercise its autonomy over its national interests.

What Sri Lanka should explore instead, is to adopt a fresh approach to develop the Infrastructure it needs. This is to first identify the Infrastructure projects it needs, then formulate its broad scope and then call for Expressions of Interest globally and Finance it with Part of the Remittances that Sri Lanka receives annually from its own citizens. In fact, considering the unabated debt that Sri Lanka is in, it is time that Sri Lanka sets up a Development Fund specifically to implement Infrastructure Projects by syphoning part of the Foreign Remittances it receives annually from its citizens . Such an approach means that it would enable Sri Lanka to exercise its autonomy free of debt.

CONCLUSION

The adherents of Non-Alignment as Sri Lanka’s Foreign Policy would not have been pleased to hear Dr. DeVotta argue that “non-alignment is largely a historical notion” during his presentation at the Regional Center for Strategic Studies in Colombo. What is encouraging though is that, despite such “historical notions”, the political establishment, starting with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and other Presidents, Prime Ministers and Ministers of Foreign Affairs extending up to President AKD at the UNGA and Foreign Affairs Minister, Vijitha Herath, have accepted and endorsed neutrality as its foreign policy. However, this lack of congruence between the experts, some of whom are associated with Government institutions, and the Political Establishment, is detrimental to Sri Lanka’s interests.

If as Professor DeVotta warns, the future Global Order would be fashioned by US – China Rivalry, Sri Lanka has to prepare itself if it is not to become a victim of this escalating Rivalry. Since this Rivalry would engulf India a well when it comes to Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEC), Sri Lanka should declare well in advance that no Exploration or Exploitation would be permitted within its EEC on the principle of inviolability of territory under provisions of Neutrality and the UN adoption of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace.

As a measure of preparedness serious consideration should be given to the recommendation cited above which is to set up a development fund by allocating part of the annual dollar remittances to finance Sri Lanka’s development without depending on foreign direct investments, export-driven strategies or the need to be flexible to negotiate dependencies; A strategy that is in keeping with Sri Lanka’s civilisational values of self-reliance. Judging from the unprecedented devastation recently experienced by Sri Lanka due to lack of preparedness and unheeded warnings, the lesson for the political establishment is to rely on the wisdom and relevance of Self-Reliance to equip Sri Lanka to face the consequences of the US–China rivalry.

by Neville Ladduwahetty ✍️

Features

1132nd RO Water purification plant opened at Mahinda MV, Kauduluwewa

Published

1 day ago

2025/12/19

Thilina Walpola

Sponsors (senior management from M/S Perera and Sons), Principal and SLN officials at Opening of RO Plant

A project sponsored by Perera and Sons (P&S) Company and built by Sri Lanka Navy

Petroleum Terminals Ltd
Former Managing Director Ceylon Petroleum Corporation
Former High Commissioner to Pakistan

When the 1132nd RO plant built by the Navy with funds generously provided by M/S Perera and Sons, Sri Lanka’s iconic, century-old bakery and food service chain, established in 1902, known for its network of outlets, numbering 235, in Sri Lanka. This company, established in 1902 by Philanthropist K. A. Charles Perera, well known for their efforts to help the needy and humble people. Helping people gain access to drinking water is a project launched with the help of this esteemed company.

The opening of an RO plant

The Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) started spreading like a wildfire mainly in North Central, North Western and Eastern provinces. Medical experts are of the view that the main cause of the disease is the use of unsafe water for drinking and cooking. The map shows how the CKD is spreading in Sri Lanka.

School where 1132nd RO plants established by SLN

In 2015, when I was the Commander of the Navy, with our Research and Development Unit of SLN led by a brilliant Marine Engineer who with his expertise and innovative skills brought LTTE Sea Tigers Wing to their knees. The famous remote-controlled explosive-laden Arrow boats to fight LTTE SEA TIGER SUCIDE BOATS menace was his innovation!). Then Captain MCP Dissanayake (2015), came up with the idea of manufacturing low- cost Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Plants. The SLN Research and development team manufactured those plants at a cost of one-tenth of an imported plant.

The writer with his PSO’s daughter

Gaurawa Sasthrawedi Panditha Venerable Devahuwe Wimaladhamma TheroP/Saraswathi Devi Primary School, Ashokarama Maha Viharaya, Navanagara, Medirigiriya

The Navy established FIRST such plant at Kadawatha-Rambawa in Madawachiya Divisional Secretariat area, where the CKD patients were the highest. The Plant was opened on 09 December 2015, on the 65th Anniversary of SLN. It was an extremely proud achievement by SLN

Areas where the RO plants are located

First, the plants were sponsored by officers and sailors of the Sri Lanka Navy, from a Social Responsibility Fund established, with officers and sailors contributing Rs 30 each from their salaries every month. This money Rs 30 X 50,000 Naval personnel provided us sufficient funds to build one plant every month.

Observing great work done by SLN, then President Maithripala Sirisena established a Presidential Task Force on eradicating CKD and funding was no issue to the SLN. We developed a factory line at our R and D unit at Welisara and established RO plants at double-quick time. Various companies/ organisations and individuals also funded the project. Project has been on for the last ten years under six Navy Commanders after me, namely Admiral Travis Sinniah, Admiral Sirimevan Ranasinghe, Admiral Piyal de Silva, Admiral Nishantha Ulugetenna, Admiral Priyantha Perera and present Navy Commander Vice Admiral Kanchana Banagoda.

Each plant is capable of producing up to 10,000 litres of clean drinking water a day. This means a staggering 11.32 million litres of clean drinking water every day!

The map indicates the locations of these 1132 plants.

Well done, Navy!

On the occasion of its 75th Anniversary celebrations, which fell on 09 December 2025, the Navy received the biggest honour. Venerable Thero (Venerable Dewahuwe Wimalarathana Thero, Principal of Saraswathi Devi Primary Pirivena in Medirigiriya) who delivered the sermons during opening of 1132nd RO plant, said, “Ten years ago, out of 100 funerals I attended; more than 80 were of those who died of CKD! Today, thanks to the RO plants established by the Navy, including one at my temple also, hardly any death happens in our village due to CKD! Could there be a greater honour?

Features

Poltergeist of Universities Act

Published

1 day ago

2025/12/19

Thilina Walpola

The Universities Act is back in the news – this time with the present government’s attempt to reform it through a proposed amendment (November 2025) presented by the Minister of Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education, Harini Amarasuriya, who herself is a former academic and trade unionist. The first reading of the proposed amendment has already taken place with little debate and without much attention either from the public or the university community. By all counts, the parliament and powers across political divisions seem nonchalant about the relative silence in which this amendment is making its way through the process, indicative of how low higher education has fallen among its stakeholders.

The Universities Act No. 16 of 1978 under which Sri Lankan universities are managed has generated debate, though not always loud, ever since its empowerment. Increasing politicisation of decision making in and about universities due to the deterioration of the conduct of the University Grants Commission (UGC) has been a central concern of those within the university system and without. This politicisation has been particularly acute in recent decades either as a direct result of some of the provisions in the Universities Act or the problematic interpretation of these. There has never been any doubt that the Act needs serious reform – if not a complete overhaul – to make universities more open, reflective, and productive spaces while also becoming the conscience of the nation rather than timid wastelands typified by the state of some universities and some programs.

But given the Minister’s background in what is often called progressive politics in Sri Lanka, why are many colleagues in the university system, including her own former colleagues and friends, so agitated by the present proposed amendment? The anxiety expressed by academics stem from two sources. The first concern is the presentation of the proposed amendment to parliament with no prior consultative process with academics or representative bodies on its content, and the possible urgency with which it will get pushed through parliament (if a second reading takes place as per the regular procedure) in the midst of a national crisis. The second is the content itself.

Appointment of Deans

Let me take the second point first. When it comes to the selection of deans, the existing Act states that a dean will be selected from among a faculty’s own who are heads of department. The provision was crafted this way based on the logic that a serving head of department would have administrative experience and connections that would help run a faculty in an efficient manner. Irrespective of how this worked in practice, the idea behind has merit.

By contrast, the proposed amendment suggests that a dean will be elected by the faculty from among its senior professors, professors, associate professors and senior lecturers (Grade I). In other words, a person no longer needs to be a head of department to be considered for election as a dean. While in a sense, this marks a more democratised approach to the selection, it also allows people lacking in experience to be elected by manoeuvring the electoral process within faculties.

In the existing Act, this appointment is made by the vice chancellor once a dean is elected by a given faculty. In the proposed amendment, this responsibility will shift to the university’s governing council. In the existing Act, if a dean is indisposed for a number of reasons, the vice chancellor can appoint an existing head of department to act for the necessary period of time, following on the logic outlined earlier. The new amendment would empower the vice chancellor to appoint another senior professor, professor, associate professor or senior lecturer (Grade I) from the concerned faculty in an acting capacity. Again, this appears to be a positive development.

Appointing Heads of Department

Under the current Act heads of department have been appointed from among professors, associate professors, senior lecturers or lecturers appointed by the Council upon the recommendation of the vice chancellor. The proposed amendment states the head of department should be a senior professor appointed by the Council upon the recommendation of the vice chancellor, and in the absence of a senior professor, other members of the department are to be considered. In the proposed scheme, a head of department can be removed by the Council. According to the existing Act, an acting head of department appointment can be made by the vice chancellor, while the proposed amendment shifts this responsibility to the Council, based upon the recommendation of the vice chancellor.

The amendment further states that no person should be appointed as the head of the same department for more than one term unless all other eligible people have already completed their responsibilities as heads of department. This is actually a positive development given that some individuals have managed to hang on to the head of department post for years, thereby depriving opportunities to other competent colleagues to serve in the post.

Process of amending the Universities Act

The question is, if some of the contents of the proposed amendment are positive developments, as they appear to be, why are academics anxious about its passing in parliament? This brings me to my first point, that is the way in which this amendment is being rushed through by the government. This has been clearly articulated by the Arts Faculty Teachers Association of University of Colombo. In a letter to the Minister of Education dated 9 December 2025, the Association makes two points, which have merit. First, “the bill has been drafted and tabled in Parliament for first reading without a consultative process with academics in state universities, who are this bill’s main stakeholders. We note that while the academic community may agree with its contents, the process is flawed because it is undemocratic and not transparent. There has not been adequate time for deliberation and discussion of details that may make the amendment stronger, especially in the face of the disaster situation of the country.”

Second, “AFTA’s membership also questions the urgency with which the bill is tabled in Parliament, and the subsequent unethical conduct of the UGC in requesting the postponement of dean selections and heads of department appointments in state universities in expectation of the bill’s passing in Parliament.”

These are serious concerns. No one would question the fact that the Universities Act needs to be amended. However, this must necessarily be based on a comprehensive review process. The haste to change only sections pertaining to the selection of deans and heads of department is strange, to say the least, and that too in the midst of dealing with the worst natural calamity the country has faced in living memory. To compound matters, the process also has been fast-tracked thereby compromising on the time made available to academics to make their views be known.

Similarly, the issuing of a letter by the UGC freezing all appointments of deans and heads of department, even though elections and other formalities have been carried out, is a telling instance of the government’s problematic haste and patently undemocratic process. Notably, this action comes from a government whose members, including the Education Minister herself, have stood steadfastly for sensible university reforms, before coming to power. The present process is manoeuvred in such a manner, that the proposed amendment would soon become law in the way the government requires, including all future appointments being made under this new law. Hence, the attempt to halt appointments, which were already in the pipeline, in the interim period.

It is evident that rather than undertake serious university sector reforms, the government is aiming to control universities and thereby their further politicization amenable to the present dispensation. The ostensible democratis0…..ation of the qualified pool of applicants for deanships opens up the possibilities for people lacking experience, but are proximate to the present powers that be, to hold influential positions within the university. The transfer of appointing powers to the Councils indicates the same trend. After all, Councils are partly made up of outsiders to the university, and such individuals, without exception, are political appointees. The likelihood of them adhering to the interests of the government would be very similar to the manner in which some vice chancellors appointed by the President of the country feel obligated to act.

All things considered, particularly the rushed and non-transparent process adopted thus far by the government does not show sincerity towards genuine and much needed university sector reforms. By contrast, it shows a crude intent to control universities at any cost. It is extremely regrettable that the universities in general have not taken a more proactive and principled position towards the content and the process of the proposed amendment. As I have said many times before, whatever ills that have befallen universities so far is the disastrous fallout of compromises of those within made for personal gain and greed, or the abject silence and disinterest of those within. These culprits have abandoned broader institutional development. This appears to be yet another instance of that sad process.

In this context, I have admiration for my former colleagues in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Colombo for having the ethical courage to indicate clearly the fault lines of the proposed amendment and the problems of its process. What they have asked is a postponement of the process giving them time to engage. In this context, it is indeed disappointing to see the needlessly conciliatory tone of the letter to the Education Minister by the Federation of University Teachers Association dated December 5, 2025, which sends the wrong signal.

If this government still believes it is a people’s government, the least it can do is give these academics time to engage with the proposed amendment. After all, many within the academic community helped bring the government to power. If not and if this amendment is rushed through parliament in needless haste, it will create a precedent that signals the way in which the government intends to do business in the future, abusing its parliamentary majority and denting its credibility for good.